FPGA Implementation of Channel Mismatch Calibration in TIADCs for Signals in Any Nyquist Bands

This paper presents a fully digital background calibration technique of the gain and timing mismatches in undersampling Time-Interleaved Analog-to-Digital Converters for the wideband bandlimited input signal at any Nyquist bands. The proposed technique does not require an additional reference channel nor a pilot input. The channel mismatch parameters are estimated based on the mismatch frequency band. The experimental results shows the efficiency of the proposed mitigation technique with the SNDR improvement of 16dB for 4-channel 60dB SNR TIADC clocked at 2.7GHz given a multi-tone input occupied at the third Nyquist band. The hardware architecture of the proposed technique is designed and validated on Altera FPGA DE4 board. The synthesized design utilizes a very little amount of the hardware resource in the FPGA chip and works correctly on a Hardware-In-the-Loop emulation framework

ENCAPSULATION OF LACTOBACILLUS ACIDOPHILUS IN YEAST CELL WALLS (SACCHAROMYCES CEREVISIAE) FOR IMPROVING SURVIVAL IN GASTROINTESTINAL CONDITIONS

In search of high-quality health products, it is required that probiotic preparations consumed in gastro-intestinal condition remain metabolically active and preserve their activity. Several recent studies, consequently, have focused on probiotic protection via encapsulation in order to optimize probiotics’ viability as well as their delivery into gastro-intestinal environment. The objectives of this study were to find out a new material for encapsulation of probiotics, utilizing capsules prepared from Saccharomyces cerevisiae to protect living probiotic cells. The encapsulation of cells was achieved, using the crack scars of the yeast cell walls (YCW) created by the sonication method. Besides, some probiotic cells can be considered as being encapsulated by some surrounded yeast cells by direct cell-cell contact. It is concluded that thanks to encapsulation by yeast cells, probiotic’s metabolic activity and survival are markedly improved. This suggests a high potential in protecting probiotics from the extreme condition of digestion process and can be applied in protecting probiotic preparations in food formulations as well. It was found that encapsulation yield in this study reached its highest point at 82.008 ± 1.123%. Viability of encapsulated probiotic in simulated gastric juice (SGJ) after 150 minutes is 19.048 ± 2.701%, compared to that of free cells at 0%. Likewise, after a 4-hour treatment in simulated intestinal juice (SIJ) (0.5% bile salt) encapsulated probiotic proves better survival at 56.338 ± 5.094% than free cell at 43.677 ± 2.058%

Efficient Detectors based on Group Detection for Massive MIMO systems

In Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) systems, the complexities of detectors depend on the size of the channel matrix. In Massive MIMO systems, detection complexity becomes remarkably higher because the dimensions of the channel matrix get much larger. In order to recover the signals in the up-link of a Massive MIMO system at reduced complexities, we first divide the system into two sub-systems. After that, we apply the Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) and Bell Laboratory Layer Space Time (BLAST) detectors to each subsystem, resulting in the so-called MMSE-GD and BLAST-GD detectors, respectively. To further enhance the BER performance of Massive MIMO systems under the high-load conditions, we propose two additional detectors, called MMSE-IGD and BLAST-IGD by respectively applying the conventional MMSE and BLAST on the sub-systems in an iterative manner. It is shown via computer simulation and analytical results that the proposed detectors enable the system to achieve not only higher BER performance but also low detection complexities as compared to the conventional linear detectors. Moreover, the MMSE-IGD and BLAST-IGD can significantly improve BER performance of Massive MIMO systems

Association of anthelmintic treatment with malaria prevalence, incidence, and parasitemia: A systematic review and meta-analysis

A chronic helminth infection can alter host immune response and affect malaria infection. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to find the impact of anthelmintic treatment on malaria prevalence, incidence, and parasitemia. Nine and 12 electronic databases were searched on 28th July 2015 and 26th June 2020 for relevant studies. We performed meta-analysis for malaria prevalence, incidence, parasitemia, and a qualitative synthesis for other effects of anthelmintic treatment. Seventeen relevant papers were included. There was no association between anthelmintic treatment and malaria prevalence or change of parasitemia at the end of follow up period (pooled OR 0.93, 95% CI: 0.62, 1.38, p-value=0.71 and SMD -0.08, 95%CI: -0.24, 0.07, p-value=0.30 respectively) or at any defined time points in analysis. Pooled analysis of three studies demonstrated no association between malaria incidence and anthelmintic treatment (rate ratio 0.93, 95%CI: 0.80, 1.08, p-value=0.33). Our study encourages anthelmintic treatment in countries with high burden of co-infections as anthelmintic treatment is not associated with change in malaria prevalence, incidence, or parasitemia

Spatial Organization and Molecular Correlation of Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocytes Using Deep Learning on Pathology Images

Beyond sample curation and basic pathologic characterization, the digitized H&E-stained images of TCGA samples remain underutilized. To highlight this resource, we present mappings of tumorinfiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) based on H&E images from 13 TCGA tumor types. These TIL maps are derived through computational staining using a convolutional neural network trained to classify patches of images. Affinity propagation revealed local spatial structure in TIL patterns and correlation with overall survival. TIL map structural patterns were grouped using standard histopathological parameters. These patterns are enriched in particular T cell subpopulations derived from molecular measures. TIL densities and spatial structure were differentially enriched among tumor types, immune subtypes, and tumor molecular subtypes, implying that spatial infiltrate state could reflect particular tumor cell aberration states. Obtaining spatial lymphocytic patterns linked to the rich genomic characterization of TCGA samples demonstrates one use for the TCGA image archives with insights into the tumor-immune microenvironment

Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts

Pan-cancer Alterations of the MYC Oncogene and Its Proximal Network across the Cancer Genome Atlas

Although theMYConcogene has been implicated incancer, a systematic assessment of alterations ofMYC, related transcription factors, and co-regulatoryproteins, forming the proximal MYC network (PMN),across human cancers is lacking. Using computa-tional approaches, we define genomic and proteo-mic features associated with MYC and the PMNacross the 33 cancers of The Cancer Genome Atlas.Pan-cancer, 28% of all samples had at least one ofthe MYC paralogs amplified. In contrast, the MYCantagonists MGA and MNT were the most frequentlymutated or deleted members, proposing a roleas tumor suppressors.MYCalterations were mutu-ally exclusive withPIK3CA,PTEN,APC,orBRAFalterations, suggesting that MYC is a distinct onco-genic driver. Expression analysis revealed MYC-associated pathways in tumor subtypes, such asimmune response and growth factor signaling; chro-matin, translation, and DNA replication/repair wereconserved pan-cancer. This analysis reveals insightsinto MYC biology and is a reference for biomarkersand therapeutics for cancers with alterations ofMYC or the PMN